Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M., the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, celebrated the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (video), built on the site of the Lord’s Resurrection.

“Today’s liturgy reminds us that the Resurrection does not tell us to overlook evil,” Cardinal Pizzaballa preached. “It tells us that reality itself can be transformed by the power of God. He has made a way where there stood a wall. Where there was an immovable stone, now there is a threshold.”

“The Gospel does not ask us to perform extraordinary feats, but to guard life, even in small ways,” he added. “We are called not to deny the cross, but to transfigure it, making it part of the path of salvation that unites us to the life of God.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa celebrated the Mass in Latin, ad orientem, with other Franciscan friars. Wartime restrictions, reminiscent of the COVID lockdowns, prevented the faithful from attending in person.

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On Holy Saturday, the Church waits at the Lord's tomb, in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell and awaiting his Resurrection. The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the sacred table left bare, until after the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance which overflows to occupy fifty days. Holy Communion may only be given on this day as Viaticum. --The Roman Missal, Third Typical Edition

21,386 converts to Catholicism are expected to be baptized in France this Easter—up from 5,825 in 2022, 8,416 in 2023, 12,340 in 2024, and 17,788 in 2025.

Of the 21,386 converts, 13,234 are adults, and 8,152 are adolescents. Among the adults, 42% are between the ages of 18 and 25, and 40% are between 26 and 40.

62% of the adult converts are women, and 71% of adult converts live in urban areas.

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, is among the speakers at Rededicate 250, a May 17 event at the National Mall at which the nation will be rededicated to God.

President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will also speak at the event. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the retired archbishop of New York, will offer a video address.

A church in the small town of Chèvremont in northeastern France was recently desecrated.

“The tabernacle had been forced open, consecrated hosts were scattered across the floor, and ciboriums and chalices were taken from the sacristy,” the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe reported. “Similar break-ins occurred in Meroux and Bourguignon, where church doors were forced [open] and liturgical objects stolen.”

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, Germany, warned priests not to replace Sunday Masses with Communion services and called upon priests to celebrate Mass daily.

“I am concerned that Communion services—often with the distribution of holy Communion—are increasingly replacing the celebration of the Eucharist on Sundays,” Cardinal Woelki preached at the archdiocesan Chrism Mass. “That, dear brothers, is no longer Catholic, and I urgently ask you to counteract this from the outset!”

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